Religion and science are often depicted as mortal enemies. But Stephen Barra, a theoretical particle physicist at the Bartol Research Institute of the University of Delaware, begs to disagree and wants to set the record straight. True, science has Galileo as its poster boy for those who think religion would rather have a world cloaked in ignorance rather than have  its dogma challenged.

But Barr reminds us that some of the greatest scientific minds happen to be people of religion:

• Gregor Mendel, the father of modern genetics was an Austrian monk
• Georges Lema?e, one of the founders of the Big Bang Theory was a Belgian priest/physicist
• Fr. Christoph Scheiner was one of the discoverers of sunspots and discovered the rotation of the sun on its axis
• Fr. Francesco Grimaldi discovered an extremely important effect in physics called the "diffraction" of light
  
• Fr. Lazzaro Spallanzani was considered as one of the top biologists in the world in the 18th century
• Fr. Marin Mersenne, the father of acoustic, discovered basic facts about wave motion and sound
• Fr. Giovanni Riccioli discovered the first "binary star"
• Fr. Angelo Secchi was one of the the founders of modern astrophysics
• Bisghop  Nicholas Oresme was the first to graph mathematical functions and discovered how to combine exponents
• Fr. Niels Stensen is considered as one of the founders of geology

Apparently abstinence is good for the brain as well as the soul.

Read the rest of the article after the jump.

After all this news on Advanced Cell Technology's stem cell breakthrough, you'd think some people would change their mind.

Guess not.

Whether or not ACT's breakthrough will really challenge political conventions is one thing, but for the bastion of Catholicism, it's still not up to snuff. According to Monsignor Elio Sgreccia, who heads the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life, the whole breakthrough is still based on in-vitro reproduction. To the Vatican, in-vitro reproduction, "from a point of view that is not only Catholic, but from a point of view of bioethic reasons, is a negative factor."

The point of contention here is simple: taking a human life.

Previously observed methods of stem cell research destroyed embryos, which are considered as human beings by the Vatican. In this case, the embryo is destroyed after approximately 5 days of development due to the act of acquiring cells from it. The act, therefore, is supposed to be morally and ethically wrong because of the taking of human life for the purpose of scientific research.

The breakthrough, while going past that whole debacle, introduces a new wrinkle in the argument. In this case, the new method says nothing about the individual cell taken out of the embryo, which could also theoretically grow to become a full-fledged human being.

What does this mean for us who aren't scientifically non-inclined? Stem cells can grow into different kinds of tissues, which would be used to research cures for existing diseases. Politically and morally, the current mode of thinking is that the future cures stem cells could give should not be at the cost of the lives of people, even if they are only embryos.

Great words from instigators of war and religious inquisition, everyone. Great, wise words... If this latest breakthrough isn't the closest we have to a ceasefire and compromise, then the scientific community's going to run out of options soon enough.